Objective  To analyze the prevalence of malnutrition and overweight and obesity among 15 – 49 year old women of childbearing age in China from 2010 to 2012.

  Methods  The data on 35 664 childbearing women aged 15 – 49 years were extracted from the dataset of China National Nutrition and Health Surveillance: 2010 – 2012. The population data published by the National Bureau of Statistics in 2009 were used as a standard population. Complex sampling weighting method was adopted in data analyses.

  Results  The malnutrition rate was 6.9% for all the women surveyed (7.2% for the urban and 6.7% for the rural women). The malnutrition rate (13.7%) was the highest for the women aged 15 – 24 years; the rates were 14.2%, 8.0%, and 2.8% for the urban women and 12.8%, 6.9%, and 2.4% for the rural women aged 15 – 24, 25 – 34, and 35 – 49 years, respectively. The overweight and obesity rate were 25.4% and 9.2% and the rates increased with age among all the women. The overweight and obesity rate (22.1% and 7.3%) were the lowest among the women living in large cities, followed by the lower rates (24.5% and 7.8%) among the women in poor rural areas; while, the overweight and obesity rate were similar for the women in small and medium sized cities (26.0% and 9.7%) and rural areas (25.7% and 9.5%). The malnutrition rate of the urban childbearing women was higher than that of rural women; the childbearing women in large cities had the highest rate of malnutrition but the lowest rates of overweight and obesity in 2010 – 2012.

  Conclusion  More attentions should be paid to problem of nutritional deficiency and excess in childbearing women in China.